Software safe for all

The US government has ordered Volkswagen to recall almost 500,000 cars after discovering that the company deployed sophisticated software to cheat emission tests allowing its cars to produce up to 40 times more pollution than allowed.

View all... Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of Volkswagen Group, resigned today amid a scandal involving the emissions control systems on Volkswagen and Audi diesel vehicles. According to Bloomberg, he could benefit from a $32 million pension on his way out.

Good morning. Germany is reeling from the unfolding scandal at Volkswagen scandal today, after the company's chief executive was forced to resign last night. The revelations that VW deliberately used a "defeat device" to rig diesel emissions test is turning into Germany's biggest corporate crisis in decades.

Automakers argue that it's unlawful for independent researchers to look at the code that controls vehicles without the manufacturer's permission. We've explained before how this allows manufacturers to prevent competition in the markets for add-on technologies and repair tools.

As promised I popped over Pragmatic Radicalism's the Top of the Manifestos event run by @LabourDigital. I proposed that the regulator's code must be open and this can be seen at their updated event page. I presented a pitch entitled, The regulators code must be open but sixty seconds isn't long.